International brief: Russian journalist shot and killed in Ukrainian capital
(Associated Press/Alexander Baroshin)
In this photo taken on Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, Arkady Babchenko, 41, who had been scathingly critical of the Kremlin in recent years, looks at an opposition picket in Moscow, Russia. Police in the capital of Ukraine say a Russian journalist has been shot and killed at his Kiev apartment. Ukrainian police said Arkady Babchenko’s wife found him bleeding at the apartment on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 and called an ambulance, but Babchenko died on the way to a hospital.
May 29, 2018
KIEV — A Russian journalist harshly critical of the Kremlin was shot and killed in the Ukrainian capital Tuesday, and the national police said they are assuming he was targeted because of his work.
Ukrainian police said Arkady Babchenko’s wife found him bleeding at their apartment building in Kiev and called an ambulance, but Babchenko died on the way to a hospital. Police said he had multiple gunshot wounds on his back.
Babchenko, 41, was scathingly critical of the Kremlin’s policies, assailing Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, its support for separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine and the Russian campaign in Syria.
Ukrainian and Russian officials immediately traded finger-pointing over his death.
Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker who serves as an adviser to the interior minister, said on Facebook that investigators would be looking at “Russian spy agencies’ efforts to get rid of those who are trying to tell the truth about what is going on in Russia and Ukraine.” In Moscow, officials and lawmakers criticized Ukrainian authorities for their alleged failure to protect journalists.
